With a they-really-mean-it-this-time last offer on table, NBA season could be saved or lost entirely

Share this:

After all these months, the NBA lockout seems to have come down to this: there likely will either be a 72-game season beginning Dec. 15 or no season at all.

That seems contrary to the precedent of the 1998 lockout and 50-game 1999 season, and of the calendar which still allows time to reach the make-or-break point. But with an apparent last, best offer on the table and a movement to decertify the union very real, the chances of saving a season might be on their final days. And if there is no agreement with the current deal, the NBA’s next offer won’t get one.

Unwilling or perhaps even unable to offer a deal the players association would not want to refuse, David Stern went another way

With one last time to try to end the league’s labor impasse, Stern went old school. He held out a carrot (a 72-game season) and a stick (a “reset” hard cap proposal if the players don’t take the deal on the table.)

The league offered tweaks to the six or seven “system issues” the players considered most important, but Stern offered a few sweeteners to the deal. But more than anything, he offered nearly a full season, one with just one missed paycheck. He offered a 50/50 split of the basketball related income, along with a pledge to reduce the offer to 47 percent with a hard salary cap if the deal on the table falls through. And he insisted he was done making offers.
“There comes a time when you have to be through negotiating,” Stern said. “And we are.”

NBPA president Derek Fisher and executive director Billy Hunter said they could not accept the league’s proposal, but would get the player representatives together next Monday or Tuesday (apparently following a first-round playoff schedule) to get their input.

The battle will likely finally come to a head. Negotiations could go into overtime again. Stern backed off this week’s ultimatum and could renege on next week’s too. More likely, however, the season will either soon be saved or lost.

“It’s not the greatest proposal in the world,” Hunter said. “I have an obligation to present it to the membership. We need to sit down and discuss it with all the reps and collectively decide what we should do.”

That meeting might not be necessary. With two more days of marathon meetings unable to get a deal Fisher and Hunter would recommend to the union membership, the decertification movement will pick up steam. The process could begin before the player reps weigh in, perhaps as soon as today.

The sides did speak of bringing the work stoppage to an end. There were things about the league’s revised offer to consider, including to the rights of tax-paying teams that the players spoke of so much. The “mini mid-level” that tax paying teams could offer would increase to $3 million a year for three years from the previous offer of $2.5 million for two years.

“It does not meet us entirely on the system issues that we felt were extremely important to try and close this thing out, and so at this point we’ve decided to end things for now, take a step back,” Fisher said. “We’ll go back as an executive committee, as a board, confer with our player reps and additional players over the next few days. Then we’ll make decisions about what our next steps will be at that point.”

A deal could still be struck even if the decertification process has begun. The union decision will likely come down to a choice.

They will have to choose between declining an offer they don’t like and don’t consider fair and accepting it as the best offer they are likely to ever receive.

They would be wise to take it, if only because that is the pragmatic move. If they don’t, the league will have failed every bit as much for the damage that will surely come. Though Stern speaks of compromises, philosophically, the league has sought a blowout victory. If the union does not concede, Stern cannot point a finger at the other side.

“We don’t expect them to like every aspect of our revised proposal,” Stern said. “I would say there are some teams that don’t like every aspect of our revised proposal.

“This is the best attempt for the labor relations committee to address the concerns coming out of their meeting. We now await the board of the union’s response.”

The battle will likely finally come to a head. Negotiations could go into overtime again. Stern backed off this week’s ultimatum and could renege on next week’s too. More likely, however, the season will either soon be saved or lost.

“It’s been a long haul,” Hunter said. “Were coming to the end of it and trying to get this thing done.”